Victor Davis Hanson lays out the impending disaster known as the Obama presidency in succinct terms:
Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.
We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.
First, there were the sermons on ethics, belied by the appointments of tax dodgers, crass lobbyists, and wheeler-dealers like Richardson—with the relish of the Blago tapes still to come.
~~~…there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas to a censored Saudi-run press organ (e.g., Bush is dictatorial, the Saudi king is courageous; Obama can mend bridges that America broke to aggrieved Muslims—apparently Tehran hostages, Rushdie, serial attacks in the 1990s, 9/11, Madrid, London never apparently occurred; and neither did feeding Somalis, saving Kuwait, protesting Chechnya, Bosnia/Kosovo, billions to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians, help in two Afghan wars, and on and on).
…there was the campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the Constitution—FISA, Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions, etc.—followed by “all that for now stays the same” inasmuch as we haven’t ben hit in over seven years and can’t risk another attack.
He then goes on to list the only person worse then McClellan as Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, and then who can forget Biden. Biden being Biden:
…Already, he’s ridiculed the chief justice, trashed the former VP, bragged on himself ad nauseam in Bidenesque weird ways, and it’s only been two weeks.
And the result of all this?
At home, Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.
Abroad, some really creepy people are lining up to test Obama’s world view of “Bush did it/but I am the world”: The North Koreans are readying their missiles; the Iranians are calling us passive, bragging on nukes and satellites; Russia is declaring missile defense is over and the Euros in real need of iffy Russian gas; Pakistanis say no more drone attacks (and then our friends the Indians say “shut up” about Kashmir and the Euros order no more “buy American”).
This is quite serious. I can’t recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton’s initial slips).
VDH’s recommended solutions? Obama must come back down to earth, stop believing the hype he helped build, ignore the Reid’s and Pelosi’s in Congress and recognize that the world is indeed dangerous, not just misunderstood.
…If he doesn’t quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.
He won’t tho. His people, which include the press:
Media Research Center (MRC) President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.
Are keeping him well insulated….
Things are going downhill fast and picking up speed.
Guess they can’t say we didn’t warn them.
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You hired a street walker with a wafer thin resume and are now complaining that he is really just the corner minstrel man with ahat and cane. Define street walker.
The reason he hired all those Clinton retreads is they wouldn’t allow his friends to carry guns in the White House.
The Messiah has no robe.
its great that the powers that be are starting to see the cracks in the facade that they were ignoring for so long. this woman i work with is a democrat, thats it she is a democrat. you ask her a political or moral question, well any question and she replies that she us a democrat. kinda like a parrot, kinda waan put her out of her misery, but she does provide a few laughs. anyhoooo, she was pissed about the cost of the inaugeration. i told her she was a domcrat, then she bitched about closing gitmo, again i replied that she is a democrat, this got a few chuckles from several coworkers who have watched me make her look dumb repeatedly about obama. then she is all up in arms about the busness taxes because her husband owns a business and makes a tidy profit, i said, well you are a democrat, and as such you should also know that you must spread the wealth and be patriotic in paying your taxes. she was pissed. i loved it. then the mess these newest tax cheat people obama has wanted, i told her she is a democrat si they could also pull a daschle, i am soooo loving this. i think this may be more entertaining than waterboarding.
I told you it was a lousy argument:
What’s the deal, you need me to take it apart for you???
Hey dummie demmies….
I hope you had your fun, now cometh the time to pay the piper.
Now the Russians are going to push us around
The Russians are like sharks…when they smell blood…they strike
The robe has no Messiah
but…but…they won.
Prime Time Press Conf already scheduled for Mon. Stimulus bill not likely to pass. Efforts to cut it up into passable bills have failed. Efforts to cut pork have been outpaced by fresh infusions that have raised the price to $1.3 TRILLION.
Now, I thought about a new aspect of this yesterday while watching Hardball. Chris Matthews said something about a comment Obama once made regarding his little girls. He said (paraphrasing-sorry) that when he puts his little girls to sleep at night, he wants to know that he did everything he can for them.
That thought stuck in my head last night as I looked in on my 4yr old son, and 6yr old daughter. Both we asleep, content, sweet, and at peace. They had no idea they were taking out a TRILLION dollar loan to pay banks and failing auto corporations, another TRILLION to make bike paths and fill government programs with kickbacks to political contributors, and then another TRILLION to give to banks again next month. No. My kids slept safe, but I went to sleep thinking, “No way would they EVER want me to support that.” Yeah, they don’t know what a corporation, a govt program, a kickback, or other BS is, but they do know that when they borrow money from me for a new Hot Wheel or a Barbie, they’ve gotta work hard to pay it back. That lesson only had to be taught once to each kid. Neither borrows for toys now. Anyone think they’d borrow THREE TRILLION for banks?
Money FROM the people FOR the people-not money from the people for the banks, corps, and govt programs.
I wonder if President Obama thinks about that when he looks in on his kids; if he realizes the debt he’s forcing them to pay…if he realizes he’s asking his little girls to bail him out?
Watching Robert Gibbs conduct a briefing is like watching paint dry. Making matters worse, he is on every single day babbling, simply babbling.
Emanuel is also conferencing with Begalla and didn’t they say Carville is in on it too? It seems as though everyone one is running this operation but Obama. Clinton admin cronies are back manipulating through both the front and back door. He let Reid and Pelosi muck up the stimulus so bad that there’s no turning back, guess we chalk it up to all that judgement we heard about throughout the campaign. Obama didn’t need experience, he had judgement.
His biggest problem is that Harry Reid is no Emil Jones. Reid isn’t there to prop up Obama and make a president out of him and Obama is not presidential material. He has no idea how to get from point A to point B in Washington, shoot, he never had to find his way in Illinois. He’s going to wind up being the face that’s put on this mess. The Obamabots will be scratching their heads wondering what the heck happened eventually will be thinking he’s a one term wonder the rest of us wonder how he got one term.
I’ve commented before, don’t know if it was at FA, but I saw that his problems were not going to be caused by Republicans. Reid and Pelosi, imo, were licking their chops knowing they could steamroll Obama. That empty suit is as flat as a pancake, he has only himself and his party to blame.
@Scott Malensek:
He made that comment yesterday while signing SCHIP into law, he’s probably made versions of it many times on the campaign trail.
One comment he made aggravated me, he had a child in the audience whose father lost his job. He said it wasn’t right for people to have to take their children to the emergency room at midnight for primary care. Who in the world does that? Also said that we need to help people like this father so he could help his children. Applause, applause. Then when on to say they found out the kid was already covered. More applause when he said we will take care of legal immigrant children. I thought it was proven that most of these children were already covered the last time we had the SCHIP debate.
Wondering what it will be like when my grandchildren hit the work force scares me. We already have one struggling, working two jobs, she’s a vet tech, hostess at a restaurant and then does a couple of photo shoots a month, busy, busy gal.
These kids are going to have to foot a huge SS bill, this boondoggle, the threat of Universal healthcare, all of it will be laid at their feet. We are thinking of rounding them all up and turning the farm into a commune.
Wow, has it really only been two weeks? Even I thought it would take longer than that for The One to fall off his pedestal.
Never underestimate the willingness of leftists to cover for other leftists. Especially when they are black, far, far left and speak like whites. The MSM will not betray its God and Leader. Of course one can expect the little lovers squabbles and spats. But when the chips are down and the well-being of the US at stake, our media friends will gladly betray the nation they detest and cover for Hussein all the way.
Once again, this proves that Obama “screwed the pooch” when he left the crafting of the “stimulus” to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
If the press had vetted Obama even slightly better than a teenager scopes out a prepaid hooker, this inexperienced naive, an example of what’s wrong with affirmative action, wouldn’t be POTUS.
everyone needs to call their reps and oppose nobama. only a really, really dense person would not have figured out by now that he is a Communist. yes, a Red. a Commie. what we used to call, and still are, THE ENEMY. the guy has NO paper trail, cannot pass a background check, has no friends he can bring to DC who pay taxes. HE IS GOING TO DESTROY ALL OF YOU WHO BELIEVE IN A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. Resist ‘O’thority!
VDH in the National Review, 9/08:
Here he is again in the National Review, 3/08:
Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy.
Again, in March of ’08:
Jan of ’09:
Yet Flopping Aces states: “But it’s not a war right?
I don’t think NAIT, ISNA, HLF or the Muslim Brotherhood got the memo. Maybe Obama can sit down with them too.”
and FA states:
“Now that is changing the world opinion of the US for the better right? It’s not like tyrants and dictators only respect strength, they also respect when your act like a cuddly teddy bear.
Sigh….”
Finally, not only does VDH track-record poorly illustrate his prophetic abilities regarding Obama’s political demise, but there’s no evidence, according to FA’s that Obama is coming to resemble Bush.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, after being on the defensive for the past week. Obama came out swinging today. It looks as if there will be bill for him to sign. The GOP wants him to own the bill, because they are seeing a shift in public opinion. He seems more than willing to own the bill at this point. He’s basically staking his Presidency on its success. He’ll then “own” the economy, the same way that President Bush “owned” Iraq.
What I hate about both tax cuts and spending increases is that both are just ways of allowing us to borrow money from our children and leave our children with huge debts to pay, so that we can minimize our own pain. This is no way to run a household, a business, or a government.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/stimulus/2009/02/05/cbo-stimulus-bill-could-meet-obamas-job-creation-goal-in-short-term.html
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, I agree (as we so often do). I cannot look at my kids, and ask them to loan banks and govt programs money for bike paths, snow machines in Minnesota, or companies that don’t exist. Dems control the WH and Congress. They should own it.
I’ll tell you one other thing which does disappoint me. Remember FDR saying “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”
I’m getting tired of my Presidents telling me that I should have fear and that the only thing ostensibly protecting me from certain annihilation is the government.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
How else will he pass his agenda, Larry?
Obama can flail about all he wants, but the public is not buying this bill.
Every day that passes by with this in the headlines of the papers and all over the Internet and hotly discussed on talk radio is another day that the public is getting to see this for what it is. The Internet is FULL of sites that have the details of this disastrous plan.
This is not the HopeyChangey transparent gov’t that Obama campaigned on.
The Congressional Budget Office says that the stimulus will actually harm the economy and that the best option is to do nothing.
The public is waking up to the pure Audacity of this plan. Approval numbers and support for this fiasco continues to plummet.
The Senate phone lines have been overloaded.
Has there ever been a Presidency in the history of the United States that has put itself on such a crash and burn course so early on?
Obama’s only hope is to pass this before the giant is fully awake, probably in the middle of the night.
Tick. Tock.
“…Impending disaster.” riiiiiiight.
Well.
Looky! Looky!
It’s our old friend Jan / Sanjay / Simply Done resurrected in the form of Timebug.
I thought I recognized the copy/paste no original thought format of the posts.
Timebug, it turns out you’re no smarter than your other personalities.
What a shame.
Did you ever have an opinion you didn’t have cut and paste, Jan?
What’s hilarious is this:
The part we will “forgive” is any Obama governance (of which “leadership” is purely a joke of late, even amongst the fawning pundits) that resembles GWB’s in foreign policy. My beef with the former POTUS was his domestic policy… not his foreign policy.
What hath God wrought?
I mean, What hath
GodObama wrought?@MataHarley: His Foreign Policy is on a par with his Domestic ones.
I have seen better but only one worse so far. Carter.